Nailers ease past Brewers youngsters

PHOTO: Ruben Wiggins-Thomas opened the scoring for the Nailers (Pic: Tim Harrison)

This was clearly not a full strength Burton Albion side, as they fielded many young players currently in their academy and development squads.

However they are still very talented players and they will all have been looking to impress their manager and push for the first team going into the new season.

The Nailers started the game positively with them creating a number of chances and moving the ball around well.

The main chance of the half fell too Reuben Wiggins-Thomas on the 14th minute, a corner came in from the right hand side, this was deflected a number of times before falling to the feet of Wiggins-Thomas on the edge of the 6 yard box, his shot was saved fantastically by the Burton Albion goalkeeper.

Despite the Belper Town dominance, Burton Albion found their way through the Nailers defence a few times, the clearest opportunity for them came on the 19th minute when they took a quick free kick from the edge of the box, this went to the feet of Jake Davies, his shot went straight to the keeper and was easily dealt with.

Both teams continued to make a number of chances, despite this the scoring wasn’t opened until the 45 minute, Dominic Allen took a quick throw in which went straight to the feet of Reuben Wiggins-Thomas, he turned his marker superbly before firing his shot into the back of the Burton Albion goal.

Unfortunately for the Nailers, this was not the end of the action for the half, Burton Albion played a long ball forward that landed at the feet of Dylan Garnett, he turned around a few Belper Town defenders rather too easily, his shot took a small deflection before rolling into the bottom right hand corner.

This goal happened only a number of seconds before the referee blew his whistle before half time.

Charlie Palmer could have been happy with how his team played, however he will have been extremely disappointed to concede that late on into the half.

The second half was much quieter, Belper still had the majority of the ball and were in control for most of the half, however the Nailers were finding it difficult to break down the strong Burton Albion.

The Nailers did manage to break through this solid defence on the 56th minute, a fantastic ball from Laurence Constable, who was a second half substitute, fell perfectly to the feet of Alex Steadman, he slid the ball perfectly underneath the Burton Albion goalkeeper to put the Nailers back in front.
Belper Town would find themselves with a couple more chances after they began to move the ball around a lot better.

The biggest opportunity of these did fall to Laurence Constable, a good ball went through from Steadman to his feet, Constable controlled well and fired his shot towards the top left of the goal, this shot looked certain for the back of the net, however the Burton Albion goalkeeper produced a fantastic save to keep the Nailers lead to just one.